Chapter 41

Hunter

I stepped out to the porch and lit a cigarette. I must have been drunk as fuck or out of my mind or both because I actually felt good about what I had just suggested. Kelly was mine and I didn’t want it any other way. Even if that meant she brought along her family, that was fine by me. A real man has to take his woman the way she is, not spend his life wishing she was different. That’s basically the equivalent of being a coward. The way I see it, if you can’t accept the reality that’s in front of you, you have no business calling yourself a man. Women are complicated, and men have to be able to take that.

Plus, the kid wasn’t half bad. He kind of reminded me of what I might have been like if I hadn’t been taken in by Boston’s version of the Capone family. He had balls for a little kid, enough to sit across from the likes of me and not shit his pants. I had to give him credit for that.

“You smoke?” Lucas asked, with a disgusted look in his eyes as he ran past me toward his sister’s car.

“You don’t?” I said as I walked toward him.

“Grace says it’s bad for you and stops you from growing big and tall.”

I towered over him, and looked down as I blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

“Seems like Grace fucking lied to you, little man.”

I ripped his bag off his shoulder and threw it in the trunk of Kelly’s car. Lucas just stood there speechless for the first time since I met him and shuffled his foot across the gravel. I slammed the trunk and walked back around the car.

“But she’s right. It’s fucking bad for you and I’ll beat your ass if I ever see you doing it.”

I shoved him gently into the side of the car and he laughed.

You’re actually not half bad, kid.

“Careful, Hunter. That’s a tough guy you’re messing with.”

I turned around and saw Kelly making her way down the stairs.

“Holy hell.”

I couldn’t tell whether I had thought it or said it outloud. I hadn’t slept in over a day and still had some booze coursing through my veins, but I knew for goddamn sure that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“Hunter, language,” she scolded.

She motioned to Lucas standing behind me. I guess I said it, but I couldn’t fucking care less. She had put on a little red and white polka dot dress that hugged every curve of her perfect body and flowed out as soon as it passed her thighs. Her tits bounced as she came down the staircase and I watched her milky white legs as she sauntered her way past me and put her bag in the trunk. As she closed the trunk she ran her hand through her hair, stretched and yawned. The way she looked in that moment, I knew I never wanted anyone else ever again. She was fucking perfection. She looked the way I’d always dreamed my woman would look, and she fucked like her pussy was made especially for me. My cock was getting hard and I thought twice about locking the kid in the house and taking Kelly away from here forever. I was done sharing her with anyone else. It had been a couple hours and I was fucking hard as a rock.

“Well, boys, shall we?”

She opened the door for Lucas and closed it behind him. I made my way to the driver’s side and she glided to the passenger. She stopped as she opened the door and looked at me with those big, green eyes, smiling and then turning away like she was shy.

You are fucking done, pal. That’s your girl.

I tossed my cigarette and got in the car.

“So where is this place exactly,” Kelly said, and then stopped herself and mouthed, “Is it safe?”

“It’s not far, sweetheart. And you don’t ever have to worry about safety when you’re with me. That’s not a brag. It’s the fucking truth.”

She smiled and sunk back into her seat as I started the car.

I wasn’t lying to her. Deacon had checked out the place hours ago and given me the all clear. More than that, I could be driving her into the seventh circle of hell and she’d be perfectly fucking safe. I’d die before I let anything happen to her, or her kid brother, and I wasn’t fucking dying anytime soon. That’s the thing she was slowly learning. When you ride with the fucking devil, all the goddamned demons in the world can’t do shit to you. Wherever she went from now on, she was with me. And that meant she was fucking safe. Nothing could hurt her except me and I was going to make goddamn sure that never happened.

“Lucas, put on your seatbelt,” Kelly said into the backseat.

“Hunter isn’t wearing one,” he protested.

“Hunter is a grown fucking man and can do what he wants,” I said, to no one in particular.

I felt Kelly’s hand gently slap my shoulder as I pulled the car out of the driveway. Lucas buckled up.

Yeah, yeah, darling. Language. It’s not going to get any fucking better so quit that shit right now.

I reached into my pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and lit it. Kelly looked over at me and then motioned to Lucas in the back seat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. Lucas, you want a smoke, buddy?” I asked knowing full well that wasn’t what she meant.

“Sure,” he called from the backseat.

“Lucas. Over my dead body,” Kelly said sternly, as she glared at me.

I put my burning cigarette in my mouth and took a deep drag as I hit the button lowering Lucas’s window.

“You can’t protect him forever, sweetheart. Nobody’s fucking bulletproof.”

Kelly just sighed and leaned her head back. She reached over and put her hand on my thigh.

“Nobody except you, right?”

I took a deep haul of smoke and blew it out, filling the front of the car and then watching as it got sucked out the open windows.

“You’re goddamn right.”

I pulled in front of the auto shop, parked the car, and killed the engine.

“I’ll be right back. You two sit here.”

I got out and walked around to the back of the car and toward the shop.

“Where are you going?” Kelly called out through the passenger window.

I turned around and stomped out my cigarette.

“Don’t you fucking worry, sweetheart. I’m coming back. I’ve just got to grab some shit and let Dennis know I’m not coming in today. Sit there and I’ll be right back.”

Kelly looked genuinely concerned and it fucking bothered me.

Jesus, woman. What the fuck is your issue? I come, I go, but I always come back. I have half a mind to make you fucking wait.

As I made my way around the building to the back door of the garage, I got the same sinking feeling I did when I left the diner the morning before. It was the feeling I got when I left her alone, unprotected. Something primal inside me. Something was wrong. She was all alone and something was fucking wrong.

I hurried into the garage, hurried through the office, and I sprinted toward the front. Looking out the window, I was ready to throw open the door and create a fucking bloodbath in the streets.

But everything was fine. Kelly was sitting in the front and laughing as Lucas goofed around in the back seat. I could feel myself relaxing. I stood there for a moment and just looked at them. It felt good.

I broke my stare away from them and headed back into the shop.

Fuck, Hunter. Fucking focus, you dick. You’re a fucking family man now, asshole? Get your head back in the game.

I grabbed the whiskey bottle from the table and took a swig as I made my way to Dennis’ tow truck.

Let’s not forget why we’re here, you big fucking ape.

I ripped open the door and felt around under the seat until I had it.

I pulled out the duffle bag and unzipped it to make sure everything was still in there. It was. My steel, my pistol, ammo, and a bottle of booze. Between that and the girl in the polka dot dress outside, what more could a man ask for?

I closed Dennis’s truck, threw the half empty bottle of Jack into the bag with the rest, and made my way back out of the shop.

As I walked to the sidewalk, I could see Kelly’s face light up as she saw me.

I put the duffle in the trunk with everyone else’s bags and climbed back into the driver’s side.

See, darling? I always come back.

“What did you have to get?” Kelly asked, only half interested.

I lit another cigarette and rolled the car windows back down as I peeled the car out onto the only road out of town.

“Essentials, baby. Essentials.”

The mountains loomed around us, beautiful and majestic.